Social Media

Mobile Marketing in Early 2013

Jan 28

Posted by EIC Social Media Team in Social Media

A decade ago, if you had suggested that the majority of people would be sharing every boring detail of their lives, often publicly on the Internet, you might well have been laughed at. The fact is however that billions of people are updating their Facebook status, posting on Twitter, and uploading pictures of their lunch to Instagram every single day.

Social media is going to be the focus of marketing trends this year. To be ahead of the game and find those individuals that you want to market to, it is necessary to go through the morass of social networking data. You need a way to monitor which videos are hot on YouTube, which hashtags are popular on Twitter and Instagram, and which posts are getting the most likes on Facebook.

This may involve some expensive software tools, but if you are going to engage your audience you need to know where their minds are at right now, especially as trends change from week to week, sometimes daily or even hourly.

When it comes to social media, banner clicks are usually low – they are considered an annoyance to users who are trying to focus on real content, so how do you market to this crowd? You are going to need to create some genuine content, and have legitimate offers available to draw the attention of someone who’s just dropping in to check on their friends and associates – you need to learn what works on each particular site.

Marketing is also about finding people with an audience – one video blogger may have a tremendous following on YouTube, but very few Twitter or Instagram followers. Another socialite may be hot on Pinterest, but behind on their actual blog site. What this ultimately means is that finding different audiences across a number of social media sites will help you to improve your market.

Finally, you need to be able to prove that there are tangible results from what you are doing – if you can prove that your social marketing is resulting in unique hits, you have a marketing plan that will be desirable to businesses. Marketing is about reaching people – and social networking is where people will be in 2013.

This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on January 28, 2013 at 6:57 pm, and is filed under Social Media. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

Google+ for Business

Jul 20

Posted by EIC Social Media Team in Social Media

Google+ is about having great conversations, finding fascinating posts, and displaying appreciation by adding a comment or a +1. A person can even share new things such as videos, photos, or links.

Google+ can be a great way for businesses to gain more clients a business can put videos of what their company does considering most people are visual learners.

Google+ can also be local. Here are a few things that Google+ can do:

Get recommendations based on your circles, your past reviews, and your location.
Publish reviews and photos of your favorite places.
Read Zagat summaries of user reviews.
Find reviews from people you know and trust highlighted in your search results.

A business having Google+ can help people see how their business runs from others that have worked with them before. A business that has good reviews could benefit from this.

Last week Google+ started a new social network called “Events.” Google+ Events is a great way to help invite people to their events online. This is a great addition to the Google+ platform.

When the Event is made inside Google+, a business will have to fill out some basic information that Google will need to know. Google wants to know how many products are in one place like Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Place or local, and YouTube. These features will help keep Google+ on track with what the business is doing and whom they are reaching.

As part of the Event being visual, a business can add their own top image—this is called the Event Theme. These Event themes are good enough to draw people in, but the Advanced Options for the Events gives the business the option to add their own Video on YouTube with the URL link.

After the video is added on YouTube, it becomes an implanted part of the Event. When viewers go to “open the Event Invitation” the video embed opens. To know that a business has the right tab open, there will be a net “unfolding graphic” effect added by Google+ with the blue tab. The video is there to help excite viewers about the upcoming event.

Using Google+ Events will help get more people interested in the company. Plus they will be able to see what upcoming events the business is offering. By having the video linked to YouTube this will help reach potential clients to a business.

Google+ Events allows a business to invite anybody in his or her Google+ cluster or anybody else a business likes by email addresses. This is great because it’s not limited to just the current Google+ users.

Google+ can help a business in areas that will keep them reaching different people every day. Businesses need to make sure that Google+ is one of their social networks, because without it, their business is not taking the next level to be successful.

This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 20, 2012 at 12:58 pm, and is filed under Social Media. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

Google Analytics

Jul 13

Posted by EIC Social Media Team in Social Media

Google Analytics allows a company or a person to see where your audience comes from and see how they interact with your site. In addition, the company can set up goals that match what their social media sites want to reach with Google Analytics.

The great thing about Google Analytics is that it can identify valuable insights to your audience and what keeps them coming back.

Google Analytics is available for many social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and others. This can increase the number of people visiting your site every day.

Here are few tips to help your company/business get started on Google Analytics:

Getting started – first you would need to pick the most recent version of Google Analytics. To do so, all you need to do is login into your Google Analytics account and click the new version on top left of the screen.
Identify your main traffic sources– a business needs to know what social media sites they want to use and send the most traffic to those sites.

You don’t want your company having various sites up. The best decision would be to pick the top three sites you want to draw the most attention to.

Create Advanced Segments: Once a company has narrowed down their main social media sites they can create Advanced Segments for those websites. By doing this, it will improve the traffic and individually analyze an audience.

The company can also set up several Advanced Segments while comparing and contrasting them to see the difference between the main three sites they chose.

Twitter Traffic Segment: a company can also create a specific Advanced Segment account for Twitter to see how it relates to Facebook and Google+.

To do so all you have to do is click on Advanced Segments from any Google Analytics report and click the New Custom Segment button.

Then add the name of the site that you wish to choose and include as many sources that contain a filter for twitter, for example: tweetdeck, Hootsuite, twitter.com, and so on.

By adding these filters, a company can see where the traffic matches. Google Analytics will automatically insert the filters using an autocomplete function.

Facebook Traffic Segment: you do exactly what you did for Twitter except you find filters for Twitter they are for Facebook. So the Facebook filters will include: facebook.com and m.facebook.com. This will have control over the traffic coming to the company’s Facebook account.
Google+ Traffic: Google+ is run the same way as Twitter and Facebook, but simpler. It is easier because Google+ only needs one filter. Google+ sends all the traffic from plus.url.google.com and that’s it. You might see some trafficking from google.com but don’t add it because it’s something different and won’t work with improving the audience.

With these few simple steps to jump-start Google Analytics a company/business will understand how to traffic more people into their social media sites. It’s important to manage Google Analytics; it creates a stable way of having insight to who the audience is and how they can be reached and entertained.

This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 13, 2012 at 3:05 pm, and is filed under Social Media. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

YouTube is Good for Business

Jul 5

Posted by EIC Social Media Team in Social Media

People assume that YouTube is just for watching their favorite videos and watching people do outrageous things. However, that is not necessary true. There are a lot of business benefits when it comes to YouTube.

YouTube is designed to share videos with all different types of people across the world that they wouldn’t be able to reach on their own. With that being said, what if a business could broaden their horizons into branching out to people using videos? I guarantee there will be more people interested in their business and what their videos are about.

Most people are visual learners, so why not give them a sneak peek into a business and how it is run. It will show them where there money is going and how the company is run. Plus, it will bring more attention to the business as well.

Here are a few tips into using YouTube for a business.

Make the video informative. You want to make sure that the audience is captivated by the video and the information will be useful to them. There’s nothing worse than watching a video that doesn’t make sense or doesn’t help them in any way.

In addition, whomever the company chooses to work on the videos needs to be trained in doing so. This will benefit the company in promoting their videos.

The layout should be designed well. A nice layout will draw more people in. For example, when a video has pictures, make sure the pictures are in HD. This will make the pictures pop from the screen.

Another thing is to make sure that if someone is speaking on the video, that it’s nice and clear. You don’t want a muffled voice that nobody can understand.

Integrate entertainment into the video. The best way to get people interested in a video is to plug in entertainment. If a business puts funny ads into a promotional video then it’s more likely that the video would go viral.

Having a video go viral means a lot of people will be able to watch the video and will able to share the video on their other social media sites.

YouTube videos are not hard to make or to upload. However, the video needs to be a good product to make sure the business is getting the right type of attention that it needs.

The main objective of this blog is to give insight into how YouTube can be a great asset into helping create a bigger market for a business. Most people don’t think that YouTube is right for a business, but I beg to differ. With all the great information that I supplied for you, there is no way that a business can’t thrive off of YouTube.

Just make sure that you follow the tips and keep any open mind!

This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 5, 2012 at 5:39 pm, and is filed under Social Media. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

Stepping on the Platforms to Social Media

Jun 29

Posted by EIC Social Media Team in Social Media

Are you one of those people that have different social media accounts that can sometimes be too overwhelming to check? If you answered yes, then this is the blog for you!

Many people/business have various Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin, FourSquare, and other accounts for their business or personal use. With so many accounts for a business or a person to take on, it can get very frustrating. To solve this problem I want to introduce Social Media Platforms. Platforms are designed to take on multiple social media sites combined in one easy website or app.

These platform sites give people the opportunity to not only check different sites in one, but also cut the time in switching from one site to the next. The top 5 social media platforms that are well known to use are:

Flipboard is a beautifully designed app that is best to use on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or even an Android. This app gives a new meaning to multiple tasking.

With a magazine outline, countless layouts of content, and a smooth interface, this app is one of the best to manage for numerous accounts.

And the best part about this app is that it is free for users!

Glossi is a more visually appealing website that fits more to a person’s style. The website is amazing and well-executed to make sure people are integrated by their layout, which a person can pick based off of their preference. When you first get on the website you have to request to be a part of Glossi. Then Glossi will get back to you with the request. It doesn’t take that long for them to respond back.

The cool thing about this app is that with the different social medias tied into this one app, it has diversity with each site. So Facebook will be designed differently from your Twitter, and you can create how you want it to look. The cost is free!

RebelMouse is of the latest platforms to make their way onto the scene. For right now this platform only has Twitter and Facebook, but once it gets established, it will have more sites within a few short weeks; others social media sites should be up and running.

The app is more hands on and can be customizes to however a person wants their RebelMouse to be. The cost of the basic version is free; however if one wanted to have their own URL, it would only cost three dollars a month.

Hootsuite is created for business or personal use. Like the other platforms, this media site gives the choice of using several different tools to create the perfect profile.

At first sight the dashboard or homepage can be overpowering, but once you get the hang of it, it can be fairly easy to use. The cost of the basic interaction with the 5 social media sites and the two RSS feeds are free. Nevertheless, with the pro account and unlimited social profiles, it will cost 9.99 a month.

Flavors.me was discovered later on the down the line. This platform by far is one of the most experienced sites. You can have videos, music, photos, and updates on 35 different sites. It is unique and very convenient if one is running a larger business.

For a basic account, the cost will be only 20 dollars a year. With 222 different fonts and 7 layouts, you can’t go wrong with this price.

So now that you know a little bit more about social media platforms, it will be very beneficial to get started. Any of these websites will relieve stress, help with time, and help a business become more knowledgeable about the different social media sites. So sign up today and have your problems go away!

This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on June 29, 2012 at 3:14 pm, and is filed under Social Media, Tablets and Apps. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

Foursquare Updated: The Right Social Media for Your Business

Jun 25

Posted by EIC Social Media Team in Smartphones and Apps

Today, numerous brands jump on the bandwagon of mobile marketing. When it comes to this kind of marketing you cannot avoid the most exciting current social media: Foursquare. For those who don’t know, Foursquare is a location-sharing mobile application that allows users to “check-in” to venues and share their check-ins with their social networking friends.

Users collect badges and points and they can even become mayor of a place (if a person has checked in the most in a particular venue). The person can add some new friends who have checked into the same place or share tips and places that they would recommend. After checking in to the venues the users can leave feedback about the place. This can be helpful to encourage people to visit.

Since Foursquare was released, this application has encountered wonderful success. Why? Well, in this younger generation the majority of people carry around their cell phones, which gives people access to find the newest and hippest spots. Imagine pedestrians having your brand in their hands; you (the company) will have already changed the pedestrians mind in checking into your business.

The question now is “how do we use this simple application for our business?” First of all, you must let people know that you are going to use Foursquare as another media to engage and connect with our customers.

The simple way to do this is to post about it on your social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. On Foursquare, you need to claim your venue and start interacting with your audience. You can start by implying these seven easy steps:

Having access to your customer’s information: You will know who they are and where they are. In addition, this information will help you target your customers better.

Give your customers some rewards: Discounts, coupons/gifts, or free products (if they become mayor). They will just have to present the mobile reward once there. This will encourage the other users to enter your place because it makes it seem that company cares more about their consumers.

Give customers information about who you are what your company can provide.

Proposing a deal to clients: Asking them to put up a picture and in return they will have a gift or a prize.

Promoting an event on Foursquare to attract people to the venue.

Creating bonuses for loyal Foursquare customers: This will prove that regular clients come into your place and promote you as well advertising your company. Those customers will build your reputation.

Creating discounts by groups: Customers can be rewarded if they bring new clients into your venue.

All these tips will benefit the customer and the company.

Recently Foursquare has been updated, which has helped attract more participants. Indeed, the newest version of the application is focused on interactions. The update also has better features.

The new features include:

Likes and dislikes. You’ll see when friends like a page. The most check-ins will have the most “likes.” The places with the most likes will most likely establish a good reputation

“People talk about.” This feature groups the feelings or thoughts about each venue.

Now Foursquare is integrated on Facebook and we can see numerous statuses about check-ins and the comments you or others post. This method will help your place to be well-known by a larger audience (Facebook users).

This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on June 25, 2012 at 6:48 pm, and is filed under Smartphones and Apps, Social Media. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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